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High-speed train collision in Spain kills at least 39

bbc.com

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Re: High-speed train collision in Spain kills at least 39

#61

Post by littlestymaar »

fredoralive wrote: post #54
D_Alex wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not as safe as flying In France and Japan, HSR has had zero fatalities in the entire period of operation. In China, HSR had AFAIR one fatal crash, with 40 fatalities. Per passenger-mile, Chinese HSR is twice as safe as US air travel.

France has had one fatal crash on an LGV, but it was during initial line testing where some safety systems were bypassed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckwersheim_derailment

TIL.

At first, when seeing it was in 2015 I was extremely surprised I didn't heard about it at the time. Then I saw the date: Nov 14th 2015, just the day after the ISIS terror attacks in Paris, France's 9/11. Of course we barely heard about a train crash at that time…

Re: High-speed train collision in Spain kills at least 39

#62

Post by locknitpicker »

jonp888 wrote: post #48

For many years the Spanish state-owned company RENFE had a monopoly on Spain's huge high speed rail network. However their high prices, inconvenient schedules and poor customer service were often criticized, and so when, to the annoyance of RENFE and many spanish politicians, additional foreign operators entered the market on the key Madrid - Barcelona route, ridership doubled whilst ticket prices halved. So I would…

> So I would standby for this tragedy to be used for political purposes

This is an ignorant opinion. For multiple reasons.

Derailing under these circumstances is a track issue, which means ADIF, the state's infrastructure maintainer, is under suspicion. Not operators, the state's infrastructure maintainer.

Liberalization of the railway sector is an EU-wide mandate. It's not some whimsical slip of a single country's leadership.

Years ago there was an AVE derailment in Santiago de Compostela. No one banned RENFE from the lines.

Re: High-speed train collision in Spain kills at least 39

#63

Post by elnatro »

jonp888 wrote: post #48

For many years the Spanish state-owned company RENFE had a monopoly on Spain's huge high speed rail network. However their high prices, inconvenient schedules and poor customer service were often criticized, and so when, to the annoyance of RENFE and many spanish politicians, additional foreign operators entered the market on the key Madrid - Barcelona route, ridership doubled whilst ticket prices halved. So I would…

Unless there is evidence that the accident was caused by the Iryo train, I wouldn’t be so fast to blame the private companies on a decaying infrastructure.

There are plenty of cases of lack of maintenance in the railway network.

Re: High-speed train collision in Spain kills at least 39

#65

Post by utopiah »

Terrible and condolences to anybody affected.

For a bit of context according to the OECD 2023 Spain had ~1800 on the road during the previous year, so that's about 5/day. There are more deaths on the road in Spain in a couple of weeks than this tragic accident. Either way it's too many deaths obviously but I want to highlight what a freak event this is compared to a more popular mode of transportation.

Edit : Motivation behind that clarification https://ourworldindata.org/does-the-news-reflect-what-we-die... read some months ago but that stuck with me.

Re: High-speed train collision in Spain kills at least 39

#67

Post by pjerem »

littlestymaar wrote: post #61
fredoralive wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France has had one fatal crash on an LGV, but it was during initial line testing where some safety systems were bypassed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eckwersheim_derailment

TIL. At first, when seeing it was in 2015 I was extremely surprised I didn't heard about it at the time. Then I saw the date: Nov 14th 2015, just the day after the ISIS terror attacks in Paris, France's 9/11. Of course we barely heard about a train crash at that time…

I remember this day because I worked in a company that made software for train networks.

It did briefly made the news but not for long due to the terror attacks and also there wasn’t any passenger on this train, it was a train testing.

In fact the story is even more tragic when you know that the day before, they also were too fast in the same turn and in the records you hear something like « few, that was close, better take care next time ».

However, for sure this crash should have never happened but it only happened because they were testing the limits of both the train and the track.

It’s literally like a test pilot crashing an airplane while testing all the limits : it should never happen but they are still there for it not to happen in commercial flights.

Re: High-speed train collision in Spain kills at least 39

#69

Post by seanmcdirmid »

bigmeme wrote: post #45
sillysaurusx wrote: post #29

If you’re interested in this kind of thing, look up plainly difficult on youtube. He has more videos on train crashes than I’ve seen, and I’m embarrassed how many I’ve seen. Here’s one to get you started: https://youtu.be/VV2rIHEp5AM?si=sSBT9s49PqbLTGbt There are a lot of safety lessons embedded in these videos, which is why I like them. I also did a double take when I heard "semaphore"; its history goes back far lon…

Oh you silly duck! Semafor is a common word in a handful of other languages for things like traffic lights and such. I had to do a double take when I first saw it in a programming class. Also hope you’re doing well it’s been a minute since our paths crossed on gdnet.

[flagged]

Re: High-speed train collision in Spain kills at least 39

#70

Post by lxgr »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #37
bjackman wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Train crashes like this are _so_ rare. It's not as safe as flying but AFAICT in rich countries it's the same rough order of magnitude in terms of danger level. I don't have data but I would imagine crashes on these high speed lines (which always seem to be run at a higher level of professionalism than the general networks) are rarest of all. I don't think it's a good use of mental energy to plan for a crash like this…

Brain cycles aren’t a limited supply. Besides, you’ll get to feel a nice jolt of serotonin when you remember to sit backwards. > I would imagine crashes on these high speed lines (which always seem to be run at a higher level of professionalism than the general networks) are rarest of all If this crash is anything like the other ones, you might be surprised. Safety complacency tends to cause maintenance failures. Plu…

Zero-risk bias at work. If it’s actually fun for you, don’t let anyone stop you, but I wouldn’t go as far as making it a confident general recommendation.
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